Have you ever heard of genetic engineering? Genetic Engineering is, “the development and application of scientific methods, procedures,and technologies that permit direct manipulation of genetic material in order to alter the hereditary traits of a cell, organism, population.

” For thousands of years, Genetic Engineering has been used for a countless amount of purposes. For over twelve thousand years, they have been used in the agricultural business. Farmers have strived to make their crop production easier, and exceptional for the economy. They’ve used Genetic engineering to produce extra durable, insect and disease resistant, and a new, satisfactory crop to the public. Over the years, farmers have created crops just the way they wanted; bigger, better, and tastier. The crops that have developed today would probably not be able to survive out in the wild. Genetic Engineering can be drawn back to ancient times when humans used selective breeding to receive an improved, higher diverse, set of crops and livestock.

Selective breeding consists of having animals with desired traits that are used to breed the abutting generation. Some examples of genetically engineered livestock would include:  the donkey, cattle, pigs, chicken, sheep, goat, etc.. This has been used on farm animals to make their livestock that’s preferred. It can be used to enhance food quality, resistant to disease, higher growth hormone, and to reduce pollution, allying methane or manure. Genetic Engineering has been used for thousands of years and is still used to today.

There are advantages and disadvantages of genetic engineering. Genetic engineering is always guaranteed to cause a change. Therefore, whether that change is positive or negative is not certain. For example, certain plants can be modified to be more tolerant to drought than your regular plant.

But, this plant could be less resistant to other factors like sunlight, other weather conditions, diseases, or pests. Another example would be genetically modified a farm animal. Consequently, a cow modified to produce more milk could have a lessened lifespan, milk defects, or any other negative effects on that animal. Genetic engineering acquires a huge disadvantage when farming. When a farmer plants a genetically modified corn seed, consequently, all the seeds are identical and are susceptible to the same factors. Therefore, If one corn stock gets fungus or a disease, then the whole field of corn is vulnerable to the same disease or fungus. This would wipe out an entire field and would affect our food supply and the farmer financially.

This can also affect other fields as well. If a bird or an insect were to carry pollen or a seed to another field, they would cross genetically engineered crops with natural or wild crops. Hence, other fields, crops, and plants are entirely susceptible.